From the pages of Canadian Railway Modeller: Morgan Turney, in his own words

  Once again, I am showing my age when I talk about how we used to take photos of our layouts. Digital cameras existed in 1999, when this Dome Car was written (link below), but they didn’t take off as an inexpensive consumer item until the early 2000s. Until then, if you wanted to take a photo of your layout you used an SLR film camera, bracketing your shots by modifying the lighting (you needed portable lights, too!) and aperture settings in the hope that one would turn out. After taking the photos, it was off to a developer and then wait a few days or more to see the results. Nothing like today, with our phone cameras which do a great job of model photography! Anyway, that’s all just an introduction to this month’s Dome Car, where Morgan explains the CRM photo contest.   Readers will notice an article in this issue about taking modelling photos. I asked Bob Winterton to do it for us, in support of the Modeller' s Photo contest we have running right now.   Since ...

  It’s hard to believe now, since DCC is so common, that there was a time just 27 years ago when the technology was relatively new and people were wondering if it was right for them. That’s the topic I addressed in this Dome Car. As it turned out, I never adopted it, preferring block control even though I had a large double-deck layout and over 40 locomotives. (And I still use DC on my current layout, the Gateway Spur.) Anyone else out there still using only DC? To DCC or not to DCC? That's the question William Shakespeare might have asked if he were a model railroader.   On the one hand, Digital Command Control offers freedom: No more blocks to throw, no more "Who's got my train?" being yelled across the layout room.   On the other hand, there's the cost of the units, throttles and decoders for the locomotives. It can add up pretty quickly, even for a small layout.   And there's the rub, to stay with our Shakespearean theme: Because of the freedom it ...

  Who remembers the President’s Choice CPR camelback steam locomotive? And who knew it had a 24-karat gold plated bell? (Not me.) If you have one, maybe you might want to see how much that bell is worth today! Of course, the CPR never had any camelbacks. But a kid waking up to a train set under the Christmas tree wouldn’t care—and that was the point Morgan was making in this Dome Car as he praised President’s Choice trainset creator Boris Polakow for his contribution to the hobby in Canada. Anyone still have that set?   You know Christmas is just around the corner when you see the President's Choice annual train set appear in grocery supermarkets across Canada! It's like seeing next year's calendars.   Yes indeed, Boris Polakow, Vice President of Canadian Sales Development for Loblaws Private Label has done it again—he's produced the sixth collector series of President's Choice train sets.   This year's set is a 2-6-0 Canadian Pacific 'Camelback' l...

    In this Dome Car, Morgan excitedly announces that the NMRA will hold its annual convention in Toronto in 2003. Anyone remember it? It was called the Maple Leaf. (The NMRA has held its convention in Canada six times going back to 1953: In Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and, in 1983, right here in Winnipeg where I live.) That 2003 convention was severely impacted by the SARs epidemic in Toronto that year, putting a huge dent in attendance from the U.S. But I still went and had a good time. Anyone else attend that convention?   Here's a BIG news flash: The NMRA National Convention is coming to Canada in the year 2003! The Maple Leaf 2003 NMRA National Convention, to be hosted by the Niagara Frontier Region of the NMRA (NFR/NMRA), will be held in Toronto, with dates to be announced later.   Now, that may seem like a long way off, but from my experience—and I'm sure yours too—it will be here before we know it.   Our sincere congratulations to the...

  Today, when almost everyone is connected to the Internet, it's like visiting ancient times to r ead Morgan’s comments in 1998 about the impact of this new thing called the World Wide Web. At that time, the public Internet was just seven years old. (I made my first website in 1994, when there were about 3,000 websites in the world.) H is idea for printing links in CRM makes us smile now . But back then we were all sort of wide-eyed and amazed by what the Web was and could do. Morgan's wonder at this new technology would eventually make him bitter and disappointed since it would end up s pelling the end CRM (and many other print publications). But he didn’t know that when he wrote this Dome Car—nobody did.   The Internet seems to be everywhere these days. More and more of us are 'getting on the net' with personal sites, 'unofficial' prototype train sites, train club sites, muse [1] ums and manufacturer sites. The list seems endless! The last time I took a tour...

  Some Dome Cars are like unit trains, the whole column devoted to one subject or theme. But this one is more like the traditional mixed freight, with a mixture of topics and ideas such as what makes a model railroad “great;” what a great time it was for Canadian modellers with so many products; and news about the bid to host the 2003 NMRA convention in Toronto. The bid was successful, but the SARS pandemic intervened. (Who remembers that?)   What makes a model railroad 'great'? When it comes to greatness in model railroading, we usually think of things such as life-like scenery, fidelity to prototype, operational qualities, detailed locomotives and rolling stock, fine-scale structures and weathering. Often, though not always, size counts too - the bigger the layout, the greater it usually seems to be.   Thoughts about greatness in model railroading came to my mind recently when a friend told me that, after years of dreaming and planning, he had decided not to build ...